Big
Brother Goes GlobalIndex 3/05: As more an more
key decisions are taken at high profile summits, public influence
and democratic control is slipping away from the domestic arena
to a host of uncountable and often obscure internatinal bodies.
Index on Censorship asks if the age of Big Brother has finally
arrived on a scale unimagined except in our wildest dreams and
nightmares.

"Unaccountable
Europe"
by Tony Bunyan (Statewatch editor)

It is argued that it is
necessary to give up some civil liberties in the "war on
terrorism" providing the restrictions on liberties are temporary
and ended once the threat has ceased.

There is much that is
wrong with this argument not the least being that the "war
on terrorism" is permanent, not temporary. The "war
on terrorism" has replaced the "Cold War" as the
legitimating ideology for globalisation - the economic and the
political go hand-in-hand.

Moreover the "war
on terrorism" is far more pervasive and dangerous than the
Cold War ever was. In the time of the Cold War there were a number
of competing ideologies - Western-style capitalism and "liberal
democracy", Soviet-style communism, Chinese-style communism
and a host of third world socialisms. Today there is the "war
on terrorism", western-style free market capitalism and
"freedom and democracy" - and it is becoming hegemonic.

It is also argued by those
who inhabit the EU institutions (and national governments) that
"our way of life has not changed". "Whose way
of life", I ask. White Europeans? Certainly the lives of
refugees seeking asylum in Europe has changed - more are dying
trying to get in, more are being refused asylum, more are being
held in detention centres and more and more are being "voluntarily"
removed and forcibly removed if they do not consent. Migrant
communities, especially Muslim ones, have been targeted for surveillance,
stop and search and raids on their homes. Black and third world
people too, second, third, fourth generation are the target of
racism and stop and search by the police.

It is actually argued
that the swathe of measures put through (or planned) since 11
September 2001 has properly balanced security and civil liberties
- and what is frightening is that governments, ministers, officials
and many MPs actually believe this is true.

This is frightening not
just because they cannot see how the lives of refugees and migrant
communities have been "changed" but also because they
are putting in place measures which will place the whole population
of Europe under surveillance.

The surveillance of
movement

First, there is to be
the surveillance of movement. Already one of the four basic "freedoms"
of the EU is gone - the freedom to move from country to country
without being checked, all have to produce passports or ID cards
to board planes (even in most cases for internal travel as well).
In April 2004 the EU agreed that "passenger name record"
(PNR) checks should be introduced on all flights in and out of
the EU - all visitors and EU residents are to be "vetted"
before boarding. It is not all clear against which "watch-lists"
people will be "checked", will it be the EU's list
of "terrorist" organisations and individuals or a wider
list of "suspected" terrorists or perhaps lists of
those wanted or suspected for terrorism, organised crime and
for any criminal offence.

It is a matter of time
before an "Advanced Passenger Information System" (APIS)
is introduced which will put all passengers into one of three
categories: Green, you can board. Yellow, you will be subjected
to extra checks of baggage and person and/or questioned or place
under surveillance on arrival. Red, placed under arrest on arrival
at the airport or at the check-in desk. Of course there are flaws
in this system, tests have shown that between 5-15% of passengers
can be classified as "yellow" depending on whether
a narrow (terrorist suspects) list is used or a wide (terrorist,
organised crime and any crime) list. And the biggest flaw of
all is that if the intelligence and security agencies do not
know that a person is a terrorist then they will simply get on
the plane through the "green" channel.

Second, is the decision
of the EU in Decmber 2004 to introduce "biometric"
passports. The EU says this is needed to respond to international
demands for "biometric" travel documents in line with
the adopted standard of the ICAO (International Civil Aviation
Organisation) - a move emanating in G8 lead by the USA and the
UK. However, the ICAO standard is only for a digital picture
of a person to be included - this is simply the normal passport
picture sent in with a postal application being "digitised"
and the image inserted into a "chip" which can be read.
This allows "one-to-one" checks at the points of entry
and departure that the person carrying the passport is the same
person as on the digitised picture.

It provides for a very
basic check and has been erroneously referred to by government
ministers and officials as the introduction of "biometric
passports".

The biometric passport
measure adopted in the EU is going to involve the taking of two
(or more) fingerprints from everyone applying for a new passport
(or for the first time). As many people living in the Schengen
area travel within these countries using their ID cards there
is a proposal under the Hague Programme to set "minimum
standards" for ID cards - which no doubt will "harmonise"
the use of fingerprints on them.

The UK has not "opted-in"
to the Schengen provisions on border controls and immigration
and is thus not covered by the EU scheme - which is why it is
proposing to introduce its own "biometric passports"
(this leaves Ireland which also has not "opted-in"
to decide what to do). The UK is proposing to introduce biometric
passports from the autumn of 2006 (for first-time applicants)
and then for all renewals. This will involve the taking of fingerprints
and a facial scan (a scan plotting and storing up to 1,840 unique
features on a person face) and maybe even a "iris scan"
as well.

Biometrics and the personal
details of the individual will initially be stored on national
databases and later be brought together on an EU-wide database.

The implications of this
move are enormous. Over the next ten years as passports are renewed
millions of people will have to physically go to a "processing
centre" to be "enrolled". In the UK the estimated
number is over 5 million people a year. "Enrolment"
will involve not just having to go to a centre - instead of putting
an application in the post - people will be interviewed and have
to present documents to prove who they are. Then the biometrics
will compulsory taken. In the UK the government is trying to
get a Bill through parliament which everyone issued with a new
passport (whether renewed or first time) will automatically be
issued with an ID card as well.

As noted above people
living in the Schengen area (15 countries) who have ID cards
will be subject to the same processes when the new measure is
adopted.

Sliding towards a "surveillance
society"

The introduction of biometric
passports and ID cards is though only part of the picture. A
new EU health card is coming in from January 2006 which later
will hold a person's medical history on a chip. New EU driving
licence standards mean that these too will have to be renewed
every ten years (like passports) and include first a digitised
picture. Moreover, for passports and driving licences there have
been suggestions that these should be renewed every five years
instead of every ten.

It is not very hard to
see that within the next ten years there will be moves to integrate
the EU passport, ID card, driving licence and health card into
one single biometric chipped card. Privacy concerns will be traded
for convenience, at least that is what the authorities are hoping
for.

Richard Thomas, the UK
Information Commissioner, has said that he is afraid that we
are "sleepwalking into a surveillance society", a fear
that can be extended to the 450 million people in the EU.

The surveillance of
communications: data retention

The third major issue
is that of mandatory data retention. For years the law enforcement
agencies have been lobbying for access to communications data
but the opposition of civil liberties and privacy groups found
a resonance in the mainstream media and in society at large.
On 20 September 2001, just nine days after 11 September, the
special meeting of the EU's Justice and Home Affairs Council
put the issue back to the top of the agenda.

The proposal now under
discussion would require communications and service providers
to retain traffic data for all phone-calls, faxes, mobile calls
(including their location), e-mails and internet usage for at
least 12 months and to make this available on demand to any law
enforcement agency - police, customs and immigration plus of
course internal security agencies who do not already have access.
The proposal also allows for the exchange of this data between
agencies in different countries in the EU (and outside).

There are however a number
of problems with the proposal. Changes in technology mean that
service providers for internet and e-mails through ADSL provide
unlimited usage and no longer need to keep a record of use (older
technology relied on billing according to usage). Under the current
proposal service providers would have to retained data which
they no longer need and to keep it for at least 12 months (as
opposed to 2-3 months under the older systems). So the question
arises, who is going to pay for this additional work and storage
the state or the companies?

The second major issue
is the legal basis of the proposal. Both the Council and Commission
Legal Services' Opinions state that the proposal has to be split
into two different legal basis. One, covering the requirement
for providers to collect and keep the data which requires "first
pillar" legislation over which the European Parliament has
"co-decision" powers (ie: it has to agree to the text).
The other "third pillar" legislation on which the parliament
is only "consulted" allowing law enforcement agencies
to access to the data and to exchange it. At the moment the five
governments who put the proposal forward, with the collusion
of other governments, are seeking to ignore the legal position
and are proceeding as if nothing is wrong.

The "principle
of availability"

The planned wholesale
surveillance of movement and telecommunications, backed by the
introduction of fingerprinting just about everyone living in
the EU and eventually storing all this personal data and biometrics
on EU-wide databases, is to be complemented by the so-called
"principle of availability".

All information and intelligence
held nationally by law enforcement agencies in all 25 EU member
states would, under this "principle", be available
to all the other agencies. An unpublished overview report on
this "principle" (EU doc no: 7416/05) says that EU
citizens want "freedom, security and justice" and that:

"It is not relevant
to them [citizens] how the competencies are divided (and information
distributed) between the different authorities to achieve that
result"

The report ends by suggesting
that the end-game is not just for all EU law enforcement agencies
to have access to personal data regarding law and order (including
DNA and fingerprints data) but that they should also have:

"direct access
to the national administrative systems of all Member States (eg:
registers on persons, including legal persons, vehicles, firearms,
identity documents and drivers licences as well as aviation and
maritime registers"

"National administrative
systems" no doubt will include personal medical records
when these are available on a national database (as they will
be in the UK from next year).

What is as dangerous is
that the "principle of availability" will mean that
the agencies will be "self-regulating" hiding misuse
and abuse. The agencies will interpret and decide on data protection
and legal restrictions on exchanging personal data. Where before
any request had to be channelled through, and recorded by, national
Ministries of the Interior (Home Office) who scrutinised them
before authorisation (largely because the Ministries were legally
and politically liable) now there is to be a "free market"
in personal data without any data protection worth the name in
place.

In the name of the
"war against terrorism"

All of these measures
would have been almost unthinkable five years ago but not now,
in the name of the "war on terrorism" all are proceeding
with unseemly haste - giving little chance for proper public
and parliamentary debate.

It is consistently argued
that the "law enforcement agencies" needs all these
measures to fight "terrorism". There are many flaws
in this argument. First, the front-line in combating terrorism
are the intelligence and security agencies not the law enforcement
agencies. It is they who collect SIGINT (signals intelligence),
COMINT (communications intelligence) and HUMINT (human intelligence)
- though the latter was significantly underdeveloped prior to
11 September 2001. In most countries these agencies have all
the powers they need. While the law enforcement agencies, in
respect of terrorism, play a secondary and supporting role.

Combating "terrorism"
has, and is, used by governments and officials, the law enforcement
agencies keen to extend their powers and status, and of course
multinationals who are going to make billions out of the new
technological demands of wholesale surveillance. Once established
in Europe (and the USA) these new standards become the benchmark
for "global standards" (and even more billions of profit).

The second flaw is that
the "war on terrorism" is being used as a "smokescreen"
to introduce wholesale surveillance. The European Council and
European Commission argue that there is a continuum starting
with terrorism, moving to organised crime and money-laundering,
to serious crime and then crime in general (all crime). The surveillance
of movement and of communications, compulsory fingerprinting,
the creation of EU-wide databases, and uncontrolled access by
law enforcement agencies are all justified by the "politics
of fear".

Like all decisions taken
in Brussels, which are rarely reported in any detail in the media,
the reaction of civil society and people at large to this huge
shift in the balance between the power of the state and the rights
and liberties of the individual has yet to express itself. Hana
Stepankova, of the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection,
said:

"Privacy is one
of the basic values of human life and personal data is the main
gateway enabling entry into it. The citizens of countries that
experienced a period of totalitarian regimes have that hard experience
- when privacy was not considered of value and was sacrificed
to the interest of the state."

Just as the political
elite got it wrong over the EU Constitution it may be that when
the people of Europe find out that they are now all "suspects"
acquiesence may turn into opposition.

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